Lavatory doors used in hospitals, nursing homes and the like are often mounted for bidirectional swinging movement. Normally the lavatory door swings inwardly and is prevented from swinging outwardly by a retractable door stop. To enable outward operation of the door, the so-called emergency or rescue door stop disclosed in Suska U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,168 has been widely used in hospitals and nursing facilities.
To retain the lavatory door in its closed position while the lavatory is being used, a roller latch or similar detent device has been employed with the emergency door stop. However, such latches must be forcibly retracted when the door is closed and then again retracted by applying force to open the door. Feeble patients find it difficult to operate doors equipped with such roller or detent latches.
Patients prefer a positive latch, for example a sliding bolt, to insure privacy. Such a latch affords the advantage of easy operation of both latch and door. However, in the past a sliding latch bolt has been incompatible with the conventional rescue door stop since the bolt defeats the purpose of the door stop. Thus if it becomes necessary to open the door outwardly by retracting the door stop, the latch bolt will retain the door in position and prevent rescue of the patient from the lavatory. Such rescue becomes necessary when an ill patient falls in the path of the normal inwardly swinging door. Hence in spite of the substantial user effort required, a disadvantage in the hospital environment, detent type latches have been used with rescue door stops.
Moreover, the cost and installation of the roller latch is greater than that of the simple surface mounted slide bolt, and surface mounted slide bolt latches can be applied to thinner and less expensive doors than detent latches.